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Feeling overwhelmed with work and life demands? Rushing, multitasking, or relying on fancy devices and apps won't help. The answer is to create the conditions for two awesome hours of peak productivity per day.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience, Josh Davis, director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute explains clearly that our brains and bodies operate according to complex biological needs that, when leveraged intelligently, can make us incredibly effective. From what and when we eat, to when we tackle tasks or disengage—how we plan our activities has a huge impact on performance. Davis shows us how we can create the conditions for two awesome hours of effective mental performance by:

Recognizing when to effective flip the switch on our automatic thinking;

Scheduling tasks based on their “processing demand” and recovery time;

Learning how to direct attention, rather than avoid distractions;

Feeding and moving our bodies in ways that prep us for success;

Identifying what matters in our environment to be at the top of our mental game.

We are capable of impressive feats of comprehension, motivation, thinking, and performance when our brain and biological systems are functioning optimally. Two Awesome Hours will show you how to be your most productive every day.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Most of the ‘personal productivity’ advice out there—and there is plenty of it—seems designed to make the hamster run a little faster in the wheel…You are NOT a hamster. Two Awesome Hours will show you how to stop working like one.” (Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at Columbia Business School, and author of the national bestseller Nine Things Successful People Do Differently)

“Exceedingly interesting and exceptionally practical. Davis offers suggestions that are straightforward, easy to apply, and immediately useful. I spent two awesome hours reading this book last night and it changed the way I’m working today.” (Peter Bregman, bestselling author of 18 Minutes and Four Seconds)

“Josh Davis has proposed a counter-intuitive solution to a problem plaguing us all: We can’t get everything done—not even close—anymore. So maybe we should stop trying. And instead follow the research on how to have a few hours of breakthrough productivity, just on the things that truly matter.” (David Rock, Director of the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of Your Brain at Work)

“Josh Davis shows us that trying to emulate a computer’s efficiency to manage our time is a lost cause. His approachable and enjoyable writing style brings behavioral science to life, pointing out the moments that really can make a difference in a productive work day, and…a more satisfying downtime.” (R. Michael Hendrix, Partner, IDEO)

From the Back Cover

Whether we love our jobs or not, the amount of work on our plate has reached unsustainable levels. We start each workday anxious about how we will get it all done, and which important tasks will have to be sacrificed—again—so we can keep our heads above water. We often respond to our out-of-control to-do lists by focusing on being more efficient—trying to get more done in less time.

According to Josh Davis, Ph.D., we're going about it the wrong way. The answer is not to get more done faster, but rather to create the conditions for at least two awesome hours of peak productivity each day.

Neuroscience and psychology research is revealing what those conditions are. Drawing on this research, Davis explains that our minds operate according to complex factors that, when leveraged the right way, can make us truly effective. Davis shows us five deceptively simple strategies to create the conditions for incredible productivity and to restore sanity and balance to our lives:

Maximize the moments in our day when we are between tasks, intentionally choosing what to tackle next

Schedule tasks based on their cognitive and emotional demands

Learn how to direct attention

Feed and move our bodies for short-term benefit

Identify how our environment affects our focus and alertness

We are capable of impressive feats of comprehension, motivation, and performance when our psychological and biological systems are functioning optimally. Two Awesome Hours will show us how to be our most productive every day.

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Two Awesome Hours is pretty much everything you want in a book about productivity. First, it doesn't try to "squeeze blood from a stone". That is to say, it assumes that the reader is a busy person who has probably tried other ways to squeeze more out of their day, so it stays away from "finding more time" and focuses on what to do with the time you already have. Second, it offers strategies that are new and fresh--those ideas that make you say "Yes! I wish I'd thought of that." Particularly helpful are his suggestions on how to deal with distractions and how to handle those points in the day when you get to choose what to do next. Third, the writing is clear, concise (it's a very fast read), and friendly. Davis backs up his ideas with research and facts but doesn't get bogged down in the science. Easy, useful read. Highly recommend!

What a well-written book! It is short, to-the-point, and offers very practical, realistic, and easy-to-implement ideas for how to be more effective in accomplishing what we set out to do. I appreciated that Josh gives just enough background research to make his case, but not a word more than necessary. "Two Awesome Hours" teaches its readers how to properly set up our conditions to support ourselves in being productive for two hours each day. And why two hours? He's not trying to convince that we can do everything we want in just two hours (we all know that's unrealistic). Rather, he takes a much more realistic and sustainable viewpoint, which is that two hours is "both attainable and sufficient for getting to ENOUGH of what matters each day." I love this message! Thanks, Josh!

As an author -- and procrastinator -- myself, I can confidently say Two Awesome Hours lives up to the promise of its title. Packed with engaging and clearly-explained lessons, the book helps suggest new paths toward productivity (and validate existing ones) that can benefit any type of professional, not just in the workplace but in all areas of life. Two thumbs up!

This book is so succinct you find yourself nodding your head yes the whole time, as if you've always known everything that's being said. And then you get back to work Monday morning and realize how incredibly ineffective your habits actually are. If you're like me (ie "normal" IMHO) you're habits need some fine tuning. The five lessons are so amazingly straight forward that you don't realize how counter intuitive they really are. I am one of those people who wants to know "why" as well as "how" so having the neuroscience to explain what is under the hood -- or under the skull -- is really helpful.

It is a quick read and full of good ideas. The ideas it covers are basic but are a place to start when looking at other time management books. I recommend this book for all types of jobs, not just office work. I use these ideas to help focus and make decisions when doing chores around the house. That's how useful this book is to me.

Josh does an excellent job bringing the neuroscience down to an easy-to-understand level with great practical benefits to make life more productive. If you want to become more effective, this is an outstanding read.

The author offered some very accessible tools that just about anyone can use at their desk or in their workspace. He encourages the task-oriented person to be realistically, biologically and mentally effective by working with and not against our neurology. Worth every penny. Just read it again, on a Sunday morning whim, to refresh.